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I purchased my Apple “boys-toys-make-me-look-cool” TV kind of way back in August and I hate to say this, but I haven’t actually watched any ‘normal’ TV since. Not only does this mean my index finger is slowly slipping off the pulse of popular culture but it’s also putting me at risk of having my flat reposessed (I know I rent but it’s more for effect!).

So why is this so revolutionary? Well, to be honest it’s not for most of you. It is for me, I missed out on TiVo and the like so here I am, rambling…

Apple TV is quite possibly one of the best (and worst) purchases I’ve made, this year at least. The pure volume of content that they’re starting to get on there is awesome. I know it costs less to buy the DVD’s and have them in ‘real life’ from Amazon or Play but the problem (for me at least) is that I want it NOW!

Saying that Apple TV is great and wonderful and everything is all well and good but there are definitely some improvements that could be made to help suck more cash out of our pockets.

Make the box more eco friendly.
It’s very difficult to switch the box off, on the first software release you used to be able to switch the box off in any menu or even watching movie/tv by simply holding down the menu button. So, rather than faff around and find the top menu I just leave it on, thus increasing my already large carbon footprint.

Suggest content with friends
Now I know this probably isn’t Apple’s cup of tea, having a social network within the Apple TV box BUT it would be great if you could suggest a movie / tv programme to a friend. Having suggested stuff to friends in the past it would be a nice little touch if you could do it from the TV itself.

Apple TV Suggestions
By making more of tracking the content that I am rating (and how I rate it), the content within my favourites and what I’ve purchased it should be able to start to see what sort of stuff I might like. At the moment there’s no use of the suggestion system that they’ve just started to use on iTunes. It could be so much more powerful if you have more than the “people who purchased this also purchased…”, that only goes so far and really doesn’t make the most of what Apple TV knows about me.

Review content via Apple TV
Now this wouldn’t have to be a full on review, a simple star rating system for you to review what you’ve just watched.

Marking purchases
One thing that annoys me is that if I’m buying programmes from a series I have to check back with My TV programmes to check what I have or haven’t got yet. I know it comes up with an alert if you are re-buying something but that could be quite time consuming. If there was a simple icon next to an episode you’ve bought.

Alerts
For example I’m watching Season 5 of Entourage and Season 6 is out in December on Apple TV. It would be great if I could either pre-order a season pass or simply get a little alert when I next turn the box on letting me know that it’s now available for download.

Another nice touch would be to have the ability to flag movies you’d like to watch or download using Apple TV when they’re realeased. I know that there could be a horrific amount of time inbetween when you watch a movie trailer to when it’s actually released but you never know it could be quite useful. Maybe just having the ability to ’save a trailer’ into a favourites folder would be enough.

Season Passes
Now these are all well and good but generally I use Apple TV to discover new programmes that have either been suggested to me by a friend, I’ve wondered what it was like or I actually know I want to watch it. The problem with a season pass or buying an entire series is that you don’t want to fork all that cash out on something you’re not sure you’d like.

At the moment if I buy two episodes of a TV series and I then decide that rather than either going through and buying each episode individually I want to get a season pass or buy the entire series. The problem with this is that if you do that you are paying AGAIN for the episodes you originally bought. All good for Apple I’m sure but it’s a bit of a piss take to charge you twice!

Ordering programmes
Looking through my list of TV programmes for some reason is displays various seasons of programmes in random orders. I want it to display the most recent first (or last), I want to have the choice to do both.

I think the most interesting thing is what exactly is going to happen when the UK goes fully digital in 2012. Who would want to pay a license fee to the BBC when they can get all of this other content over the web directly into their televisions. I’d much rather fork out the equivalent for the license fee on some sort of license for my Apple TV. At least then you’re not going to have a few over-paid fuckwits like Jonathan Ross but hopefully see it spread out more evenly across the industry.

Either way I love my Apple TV, the biggest problem is the damage that it’s doing to my credit card!

A slightly random post but I thought I’d highlight some of the hottest re-designs and startup launches (that I know of at least) recently and in the not too distant future…

• Gighit (Gig listings and artist promotion website // launch)
• HotPrints (Cool Facebook printing app // launch)
• Qype (Local review website // redesign)
• Aroxo (Awesome shopping website launching soon // launch)
• Gigulate (Gig listings and music news // launch)
• Songkick (Gig listings and music blogs // redesign)
• Gekko (Local review / listings website // launch)
• TrustedPlaces (Local review website // redesign)
• MTV (Imminent redesign launch, wave goodbye to the current Caffeinehit Ltd design // redesign)

Know of any other cool startups / redesigns that are about to hit the web? Add them as a comment…

I’m sorry, did I miss something? When did Facebook get a sense of humour?! The usual po-faced website appears to have a penchant for Little Britain.

I happened to click on a friends profile and it came up with the error “You want to see a profile? - Computer says ‘no’”. How random!

I posted this idea on Twitter the other day and as @DrewPreston pointed out, it’s actually not a bad idea. So, if there are any entrepeneurial students, homeless people or someone with just too much time on their hands and access to a moped, this really could be a good thing for you.

OK. So my office in Kings Cross is annoyingly far away from Starbucks. I know, you should support local business and not power the corporate monsters BUT their coffee IS the best. However, other times I’m working in Blackfriars - Starbucks every four doors.

SO, the proposition is that you can phone a number 0800 STARBUCKS or login to www.getmeafrickinstarbucks.net and order a Starbucks for delivery (you set up an account and add some credit). It then puts you in touch with your local caffeine dealer who (using the GPS on his iPhone) it then sends him a message asking for you to deliver your favourite Grande Latte to address X.

They price up the cost of the Latte by say £1 and hopefully it’s still hot by the time it gets to you. It could also be a great opportunity for other local businesses to advertise with the caffeine dealer, personalising those funny cardboard wrap-arounds with local adverts.

Anyway. Can someone please do this? Remember, you read it here first. I’d expect free delivery. Thanks.

That’s right, the world of photo tagging and automatic facial recognition appears to be a little bit closer and dare I say, a little bit scarier.

MyHeritage have developed a funky product that allows you to upload all of your photos and then the system automatically groups photos.

So, say for example you upload a family album which has photos of you from when you were 4 all the way through to the present day the system will (with a little bit of learning) be able to match you in all the photos and in turn tag them for you.

Anyway, it’s a seriously exciting product with endless opportunities for the future. I guess it’s just a case of seeing how they develop it. Good job!

Ahhhh… how Captain Pugwash never fails to amuse me. Speaking of which in the Metro this morning there was this rather amusing article about a billboard advertising Portsmouth Dockyard.

It goes to show just how wrong you can go in advertising! Anyway, here’s the article…

Royal Navy tourism bosses have been forced to remove a billboard - after sniggers that it appeared to show two sailors doing something a bit rude.

The billboard, advertising tours of Portsmouth Dockyard, has a photo portraying the heat of battle in Nelson’s day.

But drivers passing it in Winchester, Hampshire, thought of a much naughtier alternative.

A dockyard spokesman said: ‘It was put up in all innocence and no one here realised what it looked like until it was pointed out to us.’

Source: The Metro

On first look the Photosynth website looks seriously sexy and that’s before actually knowing anything about it… In fact, I still no nothing about it so I’m none the wiser. When I clicked on the ‘Go’ button I was faced with this inspiring bit of copy:

So, I guess I’m going to have to wait and see exactly what it is that Microsoft Photosynth can do. In the meantime I can revel in the glory of Microsoft admitting that PC’s are shit and Mac’s rule. Fact.

Right… I don’t know why I’m using this blog as more of a ranting platform than a design blog. I’m sure I can try and bring it back round to ‘design’ somehow.

So, I bought a pair of Bose headphones last September to replace my Apple headphones. Don’t get me wrong the Apple headphones are good, they just get a little painful when you’re wearing them all day, every day. The Bose headphones seemed like the way forward.

Anyway, since I got them it seems to be one thing after another. First the wire went funky, then the replacement pair just disintegrated, now the third pair appear to have lost all base in them - wtf is that about!? It’s not like I walk particularly energetically or put my headphones through unecessary stress or strain, so why do they keep breaking?! I always thought that Bose were shit hot when it comes to audio. Am I wrong or do they only become shit hot when you’re spending a few thousand pounds?

Has anyone else had problems with their Bose headphones, is it really just me or is it a bad DESIGN?

On another, slightly more random note, check out this on Google maps, the guy is seemingly looking up at you, how come you can zoom in so close over Chad anyway?!

OK, this is more of a rant than a blog post and has absolutely nothing to do with design whatsoever…

I bought a lovely new plasma TV from Pixmania on 16th March 2008. When it arrived it became apparent that it was just far too large for our small London flat. I contacted them and arranged to have it returned. That all seemed quite straight forward and someone from Dixons (their delivery partners) came and picked it up on April 12th 2008.

At this point I thought it was all going swimmingly. However, it all started going wrong when I didn’t hear / see anything from them for over a month (apparently they process it within 7 days. Bulls**t!).

After about 12 emails via their rubbish ‘customer care’ (wtf?!) service with the regular pre-filled reply they manage to ‘find’ the (42″ £1,200 plasma TV).

On the 14th May 2008, nearly two months after I originally paid for the TV they said that they would credit my account and that it would take a maximum of 21 days to be paid into my account. However, it’s now 18th June 2008 and there’s no sign of anything, nothing at all, not a jot.

3 months after ‘buying’ the TV I am still out of pocket and without the TV. So, where do I stand? What can I do? Apparently nothing. Pixmania are sitting on my money (and probably a hell of a lot of other people - just google “Pixamnia are rubbish” and you’ll soon see why!) and by the looks of it aren’t going to pay me any money soon, even though in my account it happily points out that they’re sending me a “gesture of good faith”. All I can imagine that’s going to come through the post from Pixmania is a steaming turd rather than a nice fat check.

SO. Pixmania, you tight f**kers. Pull out your finger and pay the money into my account, and pay all the other poor b******s who are waiting to get their money back. Fingers crossed you have Google Alerts set up. If you do, please give me my money. I won’t bother you again and I definitely won’t be buying anything from your site again. If anyone reading this has any sense, they won’t either!